Final Project: Case Study of Reddit and the Aurora, Colorado Shooting

On the first day of my high school newspaper class, I learned that quality journalism must be three things: timely, relevant and local. While that continues to hold true for print media, in our increasingly technologically connected age, timeliness has taken on an unprecedented level of importance.

Whereas newspapers used to be able to update once a day, now major news sources are expected to be updated in minutes or even seconds, with no loss of accuracy in reporting ability. A famous and early example documenting this tension between speed and accuracy is the photo showing the Chicago Daily Tribune's erroneous headline of the 1948 presidential election:

http://steampunkchicago.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/dewey-defeats-truman.jpg

But of course, technology is constantly in evolution, so "...the history of visual journalism suggests that what we mean by frequently will itself change, as shifts in content become more and more rapid." (Perlmutter) In other words, new technology enabling journalistic reporting with faster updates is nothing new. In World War II, that medium was radio. It was an immediate, up-to-date news source, where it could communicate from where it was - on the ground where the action was happening. "Radio was instantaneous. Furthermore, print could never match the immediacy of Edward R. Murrow broadcasting from London as German bombs ripped through the city." Listeners could hear the bombing in the background; it was live, immediate and the reporting was in "real time," a term that would come into being much later. Though Murrow was a part of the mainstream news company, CBS, he also had a reputation as a new kind of journalist: a man of the people, someone who had honesty and integrity and who spoke his mind.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40753000/jpg/_40753014_murrow_203.jpg

But in this era, news is no longer local, but global. There is a demand to know what is happening in places all over the world, and to know it at this very instant. Now, anyone with a smartphone or Internet connection can blog or upload a video showing a newsworthy event, and it will be seen. It is for this reason that theorist David D. Perlmutter in "Image Ethics in the Digital Age" has written about how the immediacy of updates has led to the death of "big images":  "The World Wide Web has not yet itself produced an icon.... But the Internet affords a redefinition of the meaning of instantaneous toward that which is instantly impermanent, or fleeting.... Finally, it is interesting to speculate about what will happen when all news on the Internet is updated frequently." (4-5) Because people need updates quickly and in a variety of places, technology and demand have let anyone post news. And because anyone can post it, and do so quickly, there are innumerable sources of news sources. This multitude and speed has undermined the institutional power of big, mainstream news sources. "Iconic" photographs are becoming less and less frequent because there are less viewers to make it iconic and there is faster news turnover, giving photos less resonance with viewers.

One of the most recent (and last?) iconic photographs, "Situation Room" by Pete Souza, depicting the capture of Osama bin Laden on May 1, 2011:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Obama_and_Biden_await_updates_on_bin_Laden.jpg

This happened again, but with another medium and in another war: television during Vietnam. Television had become the most up-to-date visual news source by new type of journalist, a type that drew on their own experiences to reach a higher level of "truth" in reporting. Broadcasting "...had changed by the 1960s into aggressive, full-color reporting with extensive interpretation and analysis by members of a new and nontraditional school of journalism. The latter felt and still feel that their responsibility is to discover truth, not merely facts. Reporters, denying their very name, are encouraged to give their own subjective analyses of events.... The Tet Offensive during the Vietnam war put on television for all to see. The Tet offensive newsreel footage was 24 hours old by the time it had been processed for home consumption." While the audiovisual imagery put on television was still 24 hours old, at the time it was the most rapid type of visual update available coming from a location as far away as Vietnam.

Because anyone can post what is happening online, journalism is becoming increasingly democratic. No longer do major news networks and newspapers alone decide what is important or who/what should be covered. Since anyone with a camera can provide proof of what is happening, the range of stories, perspectives and locations making the news has been augmented. Now, it is not uncommon to be surfing the Internet and see posts along the lines of, "This is what the news isn't showing you..." or "Here are photos of ______. Why isn't this being covered?" Theorist Knut Lundby considers this democratized response to technology a good thing, believing it healthy that more people are participating in the public sphere: "Digital storytelling is perhaps particularly important as a practice because it operates outside the boundaries of mainstream media institutions although it can also work on the margins of such institutions.... In that sense digital storytelling contributes to a democratisation of media resources and widening the conditions of democracy itself. Digital storytelling vastly extends the number of people who at least in principle can be registered as contributing to the public sphere...."

On July 20, 2012, reddit users worldwide saw the events of the Aurora, Colorado theatre shooting unfold live on their smartphones and computer screens. It began when reddit user int3ger posted a series of 4 posts to the site.

Shooting at the AMC Century Cinema: map, local police scanner. Bomb wasmay have been confirmed. It certainly sounded like it. Apparently a bomb may have blown up a part of a theater at the Dark Knight Rises premiere.Although the news isn’t corroborating this right now, it definitely sounded like it on the scanner. Actually, it was probably the tear gas canisters.

But he was not the only user present for the Dark Knight Rises midnight screening at the theatre. User quepasacontigo lived across the street from where shooter James Holmes was staying and that a friend who lived in the same building “hit me up as soon as the cops got there and started to evac everyone.” 

He also posted photos:

http://imgur.com/ob7mZ

 Another update from him unfolded: 

The number of bomb vans has doubled. They wouldn’t send this many cops to the area unless there were actually explosives in there. They are currently taking boxes of mystery items out of the complex. A dude in a full blown bomb suit just entered the building.

Another user, themurderator, posted images of his wounds and a bloody t-shirt (warning: GRAPHIC) to the site, with the words "I am one of the 50 wounded in the aurora theatre shooting. Here are a few photos of my very lucky but nonethless terrifying brush with death. My thoughts go out to those less fortunate than me."

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17tes0592r99ejpg/ku-xlarge.jpg

Yet another user posted live footage taken from a cell phone:

The story gained widespread attention on the site when user Peener13 posted with the title "Someone came into our theater at the midnight release of Dark Knight Rises and began opening fire. Who here on Reddit can help me calm my nerves?" In the body of the post, she gave her account of events:

The shooting began during a gunfight scene in the movie, and at first, we thought it was special effects when smoke rose up. When shots happened again and people began to run, we thought something was up. A guy ran in and shouted there was a gunman in the building, and the alarms to emergency evacuate started to go off.

As the night went on, user int3ger, whose real name is Morgan Jones and is an 18-year-old from the area, continued to update his posts by listening to police scanners, until they morphed into their own thread into a comprehensive timeline of what was happening:

http://www.dvice.com/sites/dvice/files/styles/blog_post_media/public/images/Aurora-news-on-Reddit.jpg?itok=dKq0s7zr

http://www.techlicious.com/images/computers/reddit-aurora-8-600px.jpg

http://cdn.ientry.com/sites/webpronews/pictures/denvershooting_616.jpg

The comprehensive timeline continued to be updated every few minutes with coverage of what was happening and links to proof, as well as users:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/4155466-16x9-940x529.jpg

http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/terminal05/2012/7/20/12/enhanced-buzz-5178-1342802225-0.jpg

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7grk4TB381qedj2ho1_500.png

The timeline post continued to grow and grow, even overflowing into a second thread. Reddit user int3ger (Morgan Jones) stayed up all night collecting and posting information, becoming the trusted source for what was going on, collaborating with and collecting information from other users. But reddit,  a site that is already unique because it does not shy away from longer posts and has a distinct sense of community, has another feature that mainstream news sources don't have: voting.

On reddit, users can "upvote" or "downvote" a post. The benefit of this in a time of emergency, and thus confusion, is that information that is better will rise to the top: more eyes are looking at it and moderating it. And if the information is questionable or incorrect, more attention is brought to it and users can update it as necessary. Reddit is inherently a democratic forum in that everyone has a vote and everyone can speak and potentially be an accurate and immediate source of news, via a collection of first-hand accounts. This differs greatly from mainstream news reports, where newscasters must wait until all the facts are gathered and (presumably) check them before presenting them on air. This institutional type style of news delivery is clunky and contrary to the basic tenets of democracy that we hold dear, as well as too slow and ineffective. In addition, users on sites can see for themselves what is happening - people are providing proof of what is going on, and in a variety of modes: text, photos, and video. This differs from tradition, where the news is delivered verbally by a person reading off of a teleprompter, and may include a scrawl at the bottom.

Major mainstream news networks simply cannot be everywhere at once, and it takes time to get to where an event is unfolding. User-submitted information via sites like Reddit, Twitter and YouTube is the future of journalism; the case study of Reddit and Aurora showed that citizen journalism done by everyday users has circumvented that of "established" news sources - it went straight over their heads and reached the people directly. The internet is proving that the people themselves can be more timely, relevant and local than traditional media sources can ever hope to be, not to mention more accurate, as a result of being more democratic. The case of the Aurora shooting coverage by Reddit is yet another an example of how a new type of journalist is arising with technology that allows for more immediacy and accuracy in far-off places, especially during times of crisis: the citizen journalist.

Bibliography:
Baldwin, N. B. "Strategy and the Social Dimension in the 1980s." Air University Review (1982).
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1982/jan-feb/baldwin.html

Couldry, Nick. "Digital Storytelling, Media Research and Democracy." Digital Storytelling, Mediatized Stories: Self-Representations in New Media. By Knut Lundby. New York: P. Lang, 2009. 54. Print.

Folkerts, Jean, and Stephen Lacy. "The media in your life." (2004). http://www.ablongman.com/samplechapter/0205387012.pdf

Perlmutter, David D. "The Internet: Big Pictures and Interactors." Image Ethics in the Digital Age. Comp. Larry P. Gross, John Stuart. Katz, and Jay Ruby. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, 2003. 4-5. Print.

Thoughts on Ch. 15 of Image Ethics in the Digital Age

"Those who make and those who critique family films in the digital age must be particularly sensitive to the filmmakers' duties toward the subjects of their films and to the potential for wide dissemination of seemingly intimate family portraits." p. 340

In this digital era, the place for "wide dissemination of intimate family portraits" is YouTube. An example of this is the famous home video “Charlie Bit My Finger,” which has been viewed millions of times. The majority of YouTube content is not taken from other sources - an estimated 88% is “new and original content” (Wesch). Among these are the home video. Besides Charlie Bit My Finger, there are countless videos featuring pets and babies as their subject. Every pet video on YouTube, which has a whole genre unto itself, is a home video. 

Before YouTube, the arena for home videos to be widely viewed was the tv show "America's Funniest Home Videos." With this show, it was clear if consent was given. No doubt permission and consent forms had to be sign before the videos aired. But this is not the case with the Internet, where a video file can easily be taken and uploaded with no thought to the owner or subject. On YouTube there is no regulation of such things, and a much larger potential for reaching a mass audience.

In addition, on YouTube there is always the possibility of a family home video being edited, misconstrued or remixed into something misrepresentative of the filmer/subject's intentions. This is an intrinsic part of YouTube, where the prevalence of this intermingling of ideas on YouTube is so high that it is estimated that approximately 15% of all video content is derived from remixes or remakes (Wesch). "Charlie Bit My Finger" has been remixed and redone over 4,000 times (Wesch).

Professor Wesch's study of YouTube: